I WILL
by Astrid Goes For A Spin
Summary: I WILL be a ballerina, ride a horse, live in a castle, visit Iceland and America, have a boy and a girl. Ziva follows her girlhood dreams, and they lead back to the dreams of her womanhood and the man she dreamed them with.
1. I WILL be a ballerina

**I'm not entirely sure if this story could ever be considered canon, and you all know I'm a stickler for canon. But I've come to the point where it just doesn't matter anymore. My tribute to eight years of Ziva, the only way I know how to give it.**

* * *

><p>I WILL<p>

_be a ballerina_

_ride a horse_

_live in a castle_

_visit Iceland and America_

_have a boy and a girl_

.

_"__You know…I used to spend most of my time on stage searching the audience for my father's face. He was never there."_

Her confidence is gone. She used to be cocky, full of herself, and she had the skills to back up the talk.

Now, she is painfully aware that she has not worn a leotard for almost twenty years, done a plié or looked at herself in a wall full of mirrors in a lifetime.

"I would like to take some rudimental ballet lessons," she tells the woman at the desk. "Is there a class for adults?"

"There is," the woman smiles.

She fills out papers and buys her materials and shows up every day for three weeks straight. Her muscles are not used to moving in ways like this, movements smooth and elegant, not sharp, movements to please people and express beauty instead of break bones and draw blood.

_She_ bleeds, of course. The bottoms of her heels, her bunions, the side of her head when she slips and smacks her head on the bar. Her knees, when she slides and gets friction burns.

But it's strange. It's beautiful, to exert herself without the purpose of preparing herself to cause pain. She makes temporary friends with the other women in her class, meets their children and husbands and wonders whether she's pulling her life together or not. She is, she thinks.

She's nervous, actually nervous, before she goes out onstage. She, a "cold-blooded assassin," nervous.

She makes a conscious effort not to look at the audience while they dance at their first and only recital, but she can't help herself. She's a grown woman now, and she feels six, looking into the audience for her father's face.

Eli will not come. Tali and Ari and her mother, who all used to come, will not come.

_"__You're never lonely when you have kids. Good night, kid."_

_ "__Her father left her to die in a desert."_

_"__I think you already missed your chance to rescue Ziva."_

She searches, almost unconsciously, and imagines she sees her father's face, proud of her. The way Eli never had been.


	2. I WILL ride a horse

The second installment of "I WILL." A bit shorter than the first, but rest assured; the other chapters are longer than this.

**In case anybody is fretting, this whole thing is pre-written, and it's just when I have a minute I'll update them. To my reviewers - I make a point of answering ****_every single review_****, and I will get to yours as soon as I can. Thanks, enjoy! **

* * *

><p>I WILL<p>

_be a ballerina_

_ride a horse_

_live in a castle_

_visit Iceland and America_

_have a boy and a girl_

.

_"__I know this face. You made the same one when I told my brother he could not buy you a pony."_

She has not ridden a horse. _Ever._ She knows that there are plenty of missions on horseback (she's done more than a few on camelback before), even at NCIS (they were sore for days after Arizona), but she's never done it. Mossad is very technology-forward, and no one who's ever had to flee across a desert at top speed wished for a horse instead of an ATV.

But she's always, always wanted to ride one, and so she does.

The horse likes her right away; she brings it sugar even though it's not advised. It's a light color, and the horse has an ugly, thick scar across its cheek. It should be vicious and ready to bite, but when it smells her, it seems to decide she's a friend instead. Maybe it smells her own scars.

She goes for three short visits before she's deemed ready to ride by the owner of the stable, after she's learned how to saddle and set up a horse in order not to hurt him or herself.

She learns to walk him first, and she's sore afterward. She loves the feeling of him underneath her, warm and alive and working with her for their own pleasure. A few lessons later, they trot, and finally they're allowed to gallop, and she can't remember how long it's been since she felt so powerful and strong.


	3. I WILL live in a castle

**The third chapter. Don't kill me!**

* * *

><p>I WILL<p>

_be a ballerina_

_ride a horse_

_live in a castle_

_visit Iceland and America_

_have a boy and a girl_

.

She looks as quickly as she can online. It's strange; her fingers, once so agile and quick at typing and clicking, have trouble remembering how to use a computer. She doesn't know if any of her accounts are still working; she cancelled nothing and has not been on the net for months and months. She can only imagine it; her emails full of spam and ads and coupons, reminders for appointments. She doesn't need the internet and she doesn't want it; Eli's diamonds and cash go far. Very far.

She picks out a German place, less perched than rooted on its hill. It takes her less than fifteen minutes. To find a hotel. To pick a room, call, make her reservation, and book a flight.

She hasn't been in Germany since Berlin. They'll always have Berlin like they'll always have Paris, as miserable and unfortunate as that trip had been.

The hotel isn't anywhere near Berlin. It's on a river and there are people around, enough people that her Israeli-accented German doesn't stick out; it's a relief not to be noticed as heavily as she usually is – even in Israel, her American accent is so strong she's still an oddity.

It's Hanukkah when she arrives. She stays the entire holiday, and, to her surprise, doesn't feel bitter about the Christmas trees and German carols; she purchases a small Menorah for herself. It snows on the third night of her stay, and the bland color of her coat stands out brightly against the pure white crystals. She never cared about snow when she lived in Israel, but has since acquired a love for it.

She has no one to give gifts to. She has no one to receive gifts from. She gives herself gifts, however. She buys a new coat through a catalogue, gets new socks, treats herself to luxurious and hot baths in the private bathroom of the hotel. She starts a snowball fight with a man walking by, who retaliates with a blue streak of incensed Norwegian that stops in his mouth when he sees the foreign beauty before him, snow in her dark hair and a smile on her face.

She doesn't learn the man's name; their fight rages for an hour before she trips and he catches her red and white fingers and kisses them until they become warm again. They don't speak, because Norwegian is one of the only languages she isn't even passably familiar with, but it does lead back to his room in the hotel, where he's staying to write a research book he was commissioned for, she understands through the crude sign language. Clothes litter the floor as things become heated and they travel, gripping each other, toward his bed.

But it doesn't go that far, in the end. She flees, and he checks out. She thanks him in German and French and English, every language she can, for their snowball fight. She wishes him luck on his book.

She retires to her bedroom and thanks herself for this Hanukkah gift, a man to hold and kiss, albeit for only a brief, brief time.

She eats and bathes and sleeps like a princess until the end of Hanukkah, and she steps out on the terrace one last time and knows she'll never come back to Germany as she gazes out at the landscape visible from the castle she lived in for eight days the winter of 2013.


End file.
